Acting
No biography available.
68 movies sorted by popularity
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.
Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko.
After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.
A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.
A humble and simple Takezo abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by Shogun, Japan's most powerful clan leader. He's also challenged to fight by the supremely confident and skillful Sasaki Kojiro. Takezo agrees to fight Kojiro in a year's time but rejects Shogun's patronage, choosing instead to live on the edge of a village, raising vegetables. He's followed there by Otsu and later by Akemi, both in love with him. The year ends as Takezo assists the villagers against a band of brigands. He seeks Otsu's forgiveness and accepts her love, then sets off across the water to Ganryu Island for his final contest.
In the wake of the 1956 Prostitution Prevention Law, a young woman recently released from one of Japan's new rehabilitation centers struggles to build a new life.
No description available.
Pu Zhe, younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, marries Ryuko, daughter of an aristocratic family. To the surprise of all, a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops and is put to the test when Japan loses the war.
An Ishiro Honda film.
A bus driver and a female conductor on a route deep in the mountains are embroiled in a love affair that is depicted in great detail in this light-hearted romantic drama.
Ryukichi, the pampered heir to a cosmetics wholesaler, abandons his wife and child to pursue a scandalous affair with a famous geisha named Choko. This betrayal leads his father to disown him, leaving the unskilled Ryukichi with no way to earn a living. To keep them afloat, Choko is forced to continue working as a geisha while secretly scraping together a nest egg to start their own business. However, Ryukichi remains trapped in his hedonistic lifestyle, eventually squandering Choko’s hard-earned savings on his own self-indulgence.
When the only son of a working class woman is fatally struck by a car driven by the adulterous wife of a company president in a hit-and-run, the victim's mother changes her identity and infiltrates the couple's home to work as their maid, plotting to murder their similarly-aged son.
Three men fall in love with the same young girl who works in a tonkatsu restaurant in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo.
Film about a station master's romance with a young prostitute.
A nerdy young college instructor named Shinji Kikyo returns home one day to find himself the target of a mad assassin. Surviving somewhat miraculously, he fends off other assassins and with the help of reporter Keiko Tsurumaki and car mechanic Bill Otomo, eventually discovering that a "population control" association is really an assassination squad led by Shogo Mizorogi, who has been training patients of a mental asylum to become killers.
Reiko Nishida, though she had both parents, felt lonely because she couldn’t fit in with the cold atmosphere at home. A student at Wakaba Academy in Osaka, she eventually succumbed to the allure of a superficial lifestyle and joined a group of delinquents, but Kimiko Kimizuka, a student council member, tried desperately to save her friend from the path of crime.
A woman remembers her own marriage when dealing with the love life of her son.
After the death of her husband, an elderly woman and her youngest, unmarried daughter are forced to sell their house to cover his debts and decide to move in with one of the former's children, each of whom is scarcely happy to accommodate.
A love story about a former noblewoman who greedily enjoys love after breaking up with her unhappy marriage after the war, in pursuit of a wild and pure Japanese man. Three gorgeous 39-year-old single women who are in the same situation get excited about each other’s love affairs. Adapted from Yukio Mishima's novel.
A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.
The film follows a young civil engineer, played by Toshiro Mifune, who is assigned to the Tase Dam construction site in what is now Hanamaki City, Iwate Prefecture, and the human relationships involved in building the dam. A masterpiece by director Senkichi Taniguchi, who has worked on numerous films starring Mifune.
Domestic comedy involving a strong wife and a "henpecked" husband taking place in a family-run judo school.
It's a man's world. Shimamura, an artist, comes to this snowbound town to rejuvenate himself. He connects with Komako, a geisha he met on a previous trip, and it seems like love. She's the foster daughter of a local family, almost engaged to the family's son Yukio, now dying of consumption. He's tended by his sister Yuko who's angry at Komako for abandoning her brother. Shimamura returns to Tokyo but promises he will be back soon. In anticipation of his return, Komako breaks with her patron and her family loses their home. Complications arise when Shimamura doesn't come back as promised. Then Komako discovers that he and Yuko knew each other in Tokyo. Can Komako escape destiny?
A romance with political overtones about the relationship of a sheltered bourgeois woman and a doctor who devotes himself to caring for the poor. Over a ten-year period - from 1936 through the war - they find each other and are separated again by the events of those tumultuous days.
A university graduate determined to become a fishmonger defies his mother's wishes, tangles with bar hostesses and a beer company heiress, and—after misunderstandings, brawls, and a second chance—discovers that maybe the salaryman life isn’t so bad after all.
A young doctor, Kozo Tsumura, falls for young nurse Katsue Takaishi. But she's got a secret: she's a widow with a son. Kozo and Katsue decide to run away to Kyoto, but her child suddenly became sick and she just missed the train and Kozo. She makes it to Kyoto finally, but is unable to meet him. Plus she isn't accepted into Kyoto society. She goes back to her hometown and tries to forget him. She quits the hospital to concentrate on her singing. She makes her professional debut with the hit "Aizen Katsura". Kozo is in the audience.
May Kawaguchi is a famous Japanese fashion designer. Returning to Tokyo from her home in New York, she travels incognito with a tour group, in hopes of having a quiet vacation without being noticed. But she is spotted and the press has a field-day with the returning celebrity. Her hopes of rest shattered, she agrees to put on a large-scale fashion show.
The Blue Pearl depicts the interplay between a young man from Tokyo and two ama (pearl divers; literally “women of the sea”) in a superstitious coastal town. Though raised within the same tradition-bound crucible, the two women – Noe and Riu – are portrayed as diametric opposites; the former meek but affectionate, the latter strong-willed but jaded by a tryst with metropolitan life.
A struggling salesman at World Electric finds his major deal blocked by internal politics and pressure from all sides. During a company trip to Beppu, personal entanglements and old company secrets surface, forcing difficult choices and quiet compromises.
Fumiko and Ryōtarō Namiki's marriage has gone stale, with both constantly arguing over what to do on a day off, or about her cutting out recipes from the newspaper before he finishes reading it. Their animosities are witnessed by Fumiko's niece Ayako, who visits to complain about her own husband's inattentiveness, and their new neighbours, the Imasatos.
Melodrama about a talented singer who finally makes her debut
Movie about a devoted and single woman and her daughter. The mother's nickname is "Bokuseki" (wooden head) because of his supposed stubbornness. No.10 in the list of "The 10 best films of 1940" by Kinema Junpo.
Japanese propaganda film about the Normanton Incident.
Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan.
A spirited young teacher challenges the conservative school employing her with liberal thinking and teaching methods.
Keiko Yukawa is a former prostitute and the newest inmate at White Lily, a female rehabilitation facility.
What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved, and become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days coldly collecting debts. Even her best friends, fellow Geisha Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, are now indebted to her. For all of them, the glamour of their young lives has passed; Tomi and Tamae have disappointing children. Kin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves less than satisfactory.
In post-war Japan, Michiko, a disillusioned young woman trapped in a loveless marriage, confides in her younger cousin, Tsutomo, and the two become close, but decide not to consummate their affair. He instead becomes involved with the flirtatious Tomiko, who is also conducting an affair with Michiko's husband. When Michiko finds that her husband has abandoned her, she decides to take her fate into her own hands.
An older sister and brother (Mieko Takamine and Masayoshi Otsuka) come to visit their grandfather (Takeshi Sakamoto) who lives deep in the mountains. As for their parents, father was serving in the South Seas and mother died of illness on her way home. So, the brother, who is still young, will live alone with his grandfather whilst the sister goes away to study to become a teacher.
Slice of life film centered on a couple of years in the life of a rural high school girl.
After killing a detective in a botched robbery, Keiichi (Natsuki) is on the run as police stake out the homes of his sisters, mother, and girlfriend.
The daughter of a former Miss Universe winner finds success as a fashion model in Tokyo following the death of her fiancé.
A reformatory in the remote countryside houses 200 delinquents and problem children. The teachers and caretakers face much trouble. The school is often short on water, and one day, the well runs dry.
The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. This part is told from the perspective of Akemi.
1950 drama film
A nurse's tale of self-sacrifice during wartime. The title is borrowed from a patriotic song made popular by singer Hamako Watanabe during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Young widow Ine is suffering under the harsh treatment of her mother in law. As a former Geisha, Ine had struggled to be accepted into the well-established Rokujo family from the beginning. With the support of Jiro, a young man Ine's late husband had saved from homelessness as a young boy, Ine tries to keep the family's heritage of silk processing alive. Their close relationship soon causes gossip among the villagers and threaten Ine's position in the family even further ...
Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience. Pretty, young Reiko is the new dancer in an infamous theatre troupe, and her fellow performers try to protect her virtue in a land of vice. Meanwhile, an ageing actor wants to be a hero off stage as well as on, and the troupe matriarch Marie has to keep them all together.
Two young women start their first jobs at a construction firm.
On Wings of Love is a 1957 Japanese romantic musical film directed by Toshio Sugie. It was Toho's highest-grossing film of the year and the first film released in Tohoscope.
Ayako Kurimura, a new B.G. at Nitto Electric, becomes the object of affection for both her brother's colleague Kazuo Fukami and the flirtatious executive’s son, Hiroshi Tsuzawa. As office romances and corporate ambitions collide, relationships shift: heartbreak leads to new connections, old flames reemerge, and Hiroshi is ultimately disowned. Ayako helps him reunite with former lover Yoko, sending them off to Osaka while those around her find new beginnings.
1939 Japanese movie
1953 jidaigeki directed by Nobuo Nakagawa of Jigoku and Ghost of Yotsuya fame.
Jie attended a women's university with the financial support of her geisha sister Oha and became a lawyer. The aim. Michiko, one of the seven best friends from the same women's college, is getting married. The man she's marrying is her sister's lover.
A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted.
Eiko is an innocent young lady born into a wealthy family with nothing to offer. She was good at singing, and lived her life playing around with her cronies, organizing music concerts and so on. However, things change when her father's business fails and she was suddenly thrown out into the world without any foundation. Eiko has no one to support her after she loses her social status, and her only tutor, Shinnosuke (Natsukawa Daijiro) was the only one who was sincere. Eiko is a stickler for using everything she can get her hands on, and she quickly moves into Shinnosuke's house.
Yasube Nakayama left the clan and lives in Edo. One day, Yasubei visits his uncle Rokuroemon Kanno to borrow money from a moneylender in the amount of 13 ryo in order to save Oteru, the daughter of a merchant. However, the next day, Rokuroemon was killed in a fight by the Murakami brothers. Yasubei rushed to the scene, took revenge and became the husband of Miya, the daughter of Horibe Yahei.
